Comments

Heard you talk of hypothetical SE and SW Belfast Nicholas and their likely winners- All/DUP and SF respectively. What of North Belfast though? I hope Nigel Dodds gets a favourable outcome- he's a talented and highly intelligent man; a rarity in local politics. Interesting issue lies over which river is breached in constituency terms also as you discussed on air. Don't know why but I think a Ballymoney-Coleraine style seat is more likely than some Dungannon-Portadown-Armagh configuration; if only because the ramifications on neighbouring seats of the former option are a good deal less than the later. Uncertainty would also lie over the likely winner in such a seat- unionists would probably see it as a decent opportunity to regain some western representation in Westminster- if they could agree some sort of pact. Though of course Sinn Fein (as in so much of the west) would undoubtedly run them close especially with some SDLP tactical voting. In the past, when nationalist voters where less in number, less likely to vote and more evenly divided in party terms between SF/SDLP the hypothetical seat would be a unionist banker. Not any more. Unfortunately a Coleraine-Ballymoney seat will see Limavady hived off to a nationalist seat- and there you have it, the last outpost of unionism west of the Bann still represented in parliament by a unionist MP will be gone.

Thanks. There are always suprises with processes such as this; I suppose we'll find out shortly! For a political geek (like me!) it would be interesting to see what might happen to East Londonderry. Its not inconceiveable that it could be enlarged gaining much of Magherafelt council is it? That could turn into a personal grudge match of epic proportions between Gregory Campbell and Martin McGuiness- two men from the same city, contesting a knife-edge seat in which both have previously represented as MP's. I think them two are itching to take each other on!

I didnt hear the radio comments but Ive just read Mark Devenports blog and he seemed to think West Tyrone and South Belfast were for the chop. Is that correct? Do you not think any boundary change as much as the commision would deny it will make sure the 2 seats lost will be one from each side of the divide and not 2 nationalists seats as Mark noted or even more controversial 2 unionist seats - cant see that being tolerated lol

I don't think there is any real grounds for accusing the commission of deliberately losing one Nationalist seat and one Unionist; it's rather difficult to draw a theoretical set of new boundaries which would have cut either two Nationalist or two Unionist seats, given the constraints.